Pueblo Religious And Political Leader

Early Spanish Contact.

Pope was a revolutionary leader of the Pueblo peoples of present-day southwestern United States. When conquistadores under Francisco Vasquez de Coronado passed through Pueblo territory in 1540-1542 the Pueblo peoples were forced out of their homes temporarily but returned to them for a full generation before the Spanish reappeared. Rumors of gold and the desire to avenge old wounds stimulated Spanish interest, and by 1590 a short-lived Spanish colony was established near the village the Europeans named Santo Domingo. Finally in 1591 the scion of a wealthy immigrant family, Don Juan de Onate, moved to the Rio Grande and Chama River. He established his capital at the town he called San Juan and ordered the Indians to disperse to nearby villages. As friars delivered religious instruction, troops searched for plunder and provoked a rebellion at the Pueblo town of Acoma...